Broken Memories
by brillantbutscary
Summary: This is a story for the Quidditch League Fanfiction Competition, but you, dear reader, are very welcome to read it as well. It's a short one-shot about Severus Snape's and Lily Potter's relationship with a one-sided Severus/Lily pairing. Enjoy!


**Author's note: **Hi guys, I'm writing this for the Quidditch League Competition, I hope you like it.

This story is a present for my fellow Beater of the Ballycastle Bats: Lexi. ( )

Prompts: (word) memory

(dialogue) "You have about as much charm as a flobberworm."

Pairing: one-sided Severus/Lily

Summer was Severus Snape's least time of the year. It wasn't because of the sweaty, heavy-aired weather, no, that was the least of his problems. What he loathed about it was what it meant for him, it meant _home._

He snarled as the offensive word flashed through his worried mind. He thumped the arm of the chair that he was sitting on with a viciously clenched fist, regretting it immediately as pain shot up his arm.

He saw his neighbour, Alice Zabini, a fifth year with dark skin and beautiful golden eyes, looking him disdainfully, before returning to playing with her quill, while regarding a a heap of History of Magic notes with a air of even more disgust, than the one she had just given Severus.

He glanced around quickly, checking if anyone else had noticed his sudden lapse of self control, before turning back to doodle in his potions textbook.

He looked at a potion he had been correcting and sighed, the author had made so many things a lot more complicated than it needed to be. He took his quill and carefully crossed out _'_Stir 20 times clockwise and 2 times anticlockwise.' and wrote in neatly above it _'8 anticlockwise stirs and 3 clockwise stir will achieve the desired affect' ._

"What are you writing, Snivellus?"

Severus froze as the icy drawlwashed over him, like a bucket of freezing water. He looked up into the dark brown eyes of James Potter, a third year, who was known as Gryfindor's jester, with a large fantasy when it came to an (usually at someone else's cost) amusing extent of pranks and a long list of detentions.

"Nothing!" spat Severus, trying not to show just how much the older boy's relentless, and less than friendly, gaze was intimidating him.

"I don't believe you." came a sing-song reply, accompanied with an evil chuckle. "Hannah, show me what the potions-creep is reading!" he ordered, nodding to the girl on Severus right.

The said girl grabbed the book and tossed it to James, who caught it effortlessly with his seeker reflexes and grinned maliciously at Severus. "Let's see..." he murmured while flipping through the textbook with the same bored and careless way he used for anything concerning school work.

"Look here," he laughed and handed the book to the handsome boy on his left. "He thinks he's better at potions than the author, Padfoot, look at all the corrections he's done." he leered at Severus.

The boy looked at Severus in false concern and said. "Really, that's just sad, Snivellus, I thought we talked about this!" he sighed in mock exasperation. "You haven't even been trying to get a life, have you?"

"Give it back, Black!" said Severus venomously and stood up,clenching his fists, in order not to shout.

James laughed. "What if we don't, Snivellus? Are you going to tell on us?" he sneered. "I'm so scared!"

Sirius Black grinned. "Don't worry, you can have your book back!" he said. "If you can find it, that is!" he added viscously, before throwing the book out of the open library window."

Severus eyes widened for a minute, then he was running towards the library door, ignoring the laughter of the Gryfindors behind him, or the reproachful shouts of "Mind those books!" and "No running in the library!" that the librarian uttered indignantly.

He hurtled down the marble staircases and out of the huge front doors, that lead to the Grounds, into the hot and heavy evening air.

He ran to were he thought the book could have landed, fell to his knees and searched the ground feverishly.

"Looking for this?"

The voice was sweeter than the finest symphony and twice as gentle, he felt a sudden relief as he saw his book in those immaculately pale hands.

Lily. Even the name brought hope to him, lighting up his darkened soul with the hope of a saviour, maybe even love...

He looked up into those emerald orbs that seemed to reflect everything good about the world, in one simple, sparkling circle.

She brushed one strand of her curling red hair behind her ear and handed him the book with a smile.

He stood up and gave her one of his rare small smiles in return.

"Are you all right?" asked Lily her brows furrowing ever so slightly and her expressive green eyes lighting up with concern.

"I'm fine." 'At least now I am.' he thought. "It was just that Potter boy and his idiot friends."

"Oh, _them_." she said darkly and sighed. "I honestly don't know why Professor Dumbledore still lets them in the school!" she fumed. "Egotistical prats! They should have been expelled ages ago!"

They walked together in the Grounds, and Severus listened to Lilly listing the many faults of James Potter and his horrible friends. That evening he felt better than had done in weeks.

_Tick, tock,_

_The clock stops._

A plate crashed against the wall right above Severus head.

"You freak!" yelled his father. "You're just like your mother!"

Severus looked at his mother hoping for even the smallest bit of support, but there she was, sitting on a wooden chair, unseeing and indifferent to her son's distress. One of her eyes was puffy and turning a deep shade of purple, her lip was bleeding and swollen.

Her husband advance on Severus with his hand raised, the boy, however was too quick for him and ducked under his arm, running into the dirty beige hallway and out the front door of the place he had been forced to call home for so long.

He dashed upstream, beside the river that flowed next to their block of houses, halting when he came to a twisted, old willow, that he climbed until he was out of sight from the rest of the world.

He sat on a branch and felt how his anguish slowly engulfed him, he slumped forward, his head buried in his hands, crying silently.

A few minutes pasted until he heard footsteps coming closer. He stiffened, hoping it wasn't one of his parents.

"Sev?" Lily's voice was timid, but there was a slight happiness there, as if she was glad in the knowledge that he was somewhere near. "I know you're there. I saw you running here from the park."

Severus quickly tried to compose himself, wiping away his tears and blowing his nose on his sleeve. Lily came in to view directly under him, her face fell when she saw his read eyes and nose and she quickly climbed up the tree to sit next to him on the branch.

"Is it your parents?" she asked tentatively, handing him a handkerchief, after searching in her pockets for a few minutes. He took it gratefully and blew his nose.

"What else would it be?" he asked bitterly. There was an awkward silence, they both knew exactly how many ways someone could answer that question.

"I'm all right." he said, the lie sliding from his tongue with difficulty. "Just a few more years and I'll be out of here. I could do whatever I want. Become a healer. Anything." he felt his eyes welling up with tears and whispered. "Just a few more years..."

Lily reached out and hugged him as he broke down and cried on her shoulder, she cradled him in her arms, whispering reassurances in to his ear.

She was all that he had left, all that he cared about, his everything.

_Pain gets bigger,_

_Heart drops._

"I hate you." said Mrs Lily Potter coldly.

Severus stared at her pleadingly, almost begging for forgiveness.

"How could you..." Lily shook her head disbelievingly. "How could you join them?" she sobbed, and Severus had to fight down the urge to hold her close and soothe her.

She wiped the tears that had formed in her eyes away angrily and glared at him. "I stuck up for you in school, I protected you when James git out of hand!" her voice broke ever so slightly, as she continued in a hoarse whisper, almost talking to herself. "Merlin knows why. You have about as much charm as a flobberworm. You've always been so snide, even when we were kids! A good for nothing, annoying Slytherin!"

The words stung him hurting him down to the very core of his shattered heart.

"Lily, let me explain..." She slapped him hard across the face. He held his jaw, looking at her disbelievingly.

"No, let me explain!" she snarled, her green eyes blazing with a fury so great that it seemed to engulf her whole body.

"You have joined the organisation, that wants to torture and kill people like me! Innocent people, who have done absolutely nothing wrong except be born!"

She pointed a finger at him in accusation.

"You help them! How can you even live with yourself?!" she was screaming at him now, tears of fury cascading down her cheeks.

"The Severus Snape I remember would never do something as stupid as this!"

She cried, sobs shaking her body. He instinctively reached out a hand to comfort her, but she shoved it away roughly.

"James was right about you, you know?" It wasn't a question, and it shocked Severus to hear it. "You are nothing but a spineless worm! Aren't you, _Snivellus_?"

With that she slammed the metal gate and strode up to the open front door of the house that she and James had shared ever since their marriage, leaving Severus Snape, a deatheater and, as she put it, spineless worm in the dark street.

Severus stood there, feeling, for the first time since he had met Lily, truly alone. He shivered in the cold, late autumn air. He watched with disinterest, as his world came crashing down around him, leaving him forlorn and devastated.

_Rewinding with every stroke,_

_Lovingly watching the visions it has woke._

Professor Severus Snape, a former deatheater and the most hated teacher in the whole of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, sat alone in his study, tracing the pattern on the edge of a small lily-white handkerchief. It was the only bright thing in the entire room, making it seem almost funny, if it hadn't been for the clear expression of utter grief on the man's face.

His hands shook as he stroked the two initials stitched in red thread on the white cloth.

**L. E.**

He cast the piece of clothe into the flames of his dungeon fire, letting it burn along with the last shred of happiness that was left to him.

_And then, your favourite fantasies,_

_mingle with broken memories._

**Author's note: **As always, reviews are welcome. And thanks for reading.

Squirrel!


End file.
